


Game Face

by MusingMemories



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Also gratuitous trash, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Banter, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky is hurt but he's healing, Captivity, Character Study, Good Steve Rogers, HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, OT4 hints, Past Torture, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-OT3, Shuri Is a Good Bro, Snarky Tony Stark, Steve is trying to keep his boyfriends from falling apart, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Lives, Tony is stoic but he breaks, tony and bucky understand each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusingMemories/pseuds/MusingMemories
Summary: Written to appease my own prompt: After Endgame, Steve needs both Bucky and Tony, so they're...working on it with each other. In the midst of this, they get captured by an old enemy; pain ensues for them both, alongside a good deal of snark, martyring, and a growing understanding of one another and how they fit together.Story already complete, will be posted in sensical chunks!--The backhand doesn’t really catch him by surprise, as it sweeps his face sideways, surprising only that it hadn’t come earlier, because people like Rumlow are always dying to hit something, and even though he’s probably less resilient than Bucky, he’s putting two and two together quick, hello genius, and come up withTony in the line of fireis the best way to achieve his aforementioned mission. Minimal damage, maximum time wasted. He’s going to be resentful about it later, but envisioning the look of disappointment Steve would give him if he brought his precious cargo back reduced to one big panic attack, which has nothing at all to do with the way Bucky’s face has gone a mix of fearful, complacent, and childishly terrified, well, whatever, he just doesn't want to deal with disappointed Steve, that's it.





	1. Raw Wounds

_ Bucky _

“Well, well.” 

There’s a rasping, laughing voice that creeps into his awareness and trickles ice into his veins like poison from a snake bite, coiled and waiting in the garden to strike. One crystal coagulating at a time until his insides have turned viscous and cold, until it’s hard to know if his heart is beating in a rhythm too fast to process, or has given up on beating altogether. 

Not fight or flight. 

Nothing useful. 

Only a dark, drenching fear, a mild regret somewhere, that he’s taken to removing his arm, just to know he can, but he knows, really, he knows that he _ can’t _. And even as a buzz of warning rises to drive through the fog, a commanding voice that sounds suspiciously like Steve, ordering him to move, pressing urgent action into the awareness of his bones, the world is already going dark. 

“What have we here?”

\--

_ Bucky _

The throb of headache confuses his awakening, and the blissful consideration, that had lingered for moments before the pain hit, murmuring of bad dreams and turning the hard ground beneath his cheek in the welcome warm soil of Wakanda, passes away with a resignation that leaves him both aching and accepting. 

He’s always on borrowed time, and even though he’s found himself whole again, even though Steve tells him again and again, though Bucky suspects he tells it to himself more, that the stones are destroyed and that universal disintegration is off the table, more or less, for now, no, no, _ forever, Buck _, Bucky always expects disintegration to come to him sooner or later. 

Sometimes it’s in the form of some purple madman with the ability to upend the connections between his cells, but mostly he knows he’s not important enough for that kind of ending, most of the time, mostly, for him it’s this too familiar feeling prison that dries his mouth and tenses his back, one vertebrae at a time, all the old pain echoing in a whisper and a laugh. But he’s...healing, he’s better, so he pulls himself up, presses his head back against the wall and wills his eyes to focus so he can take stock of where he is and how he’ll be getting out. There’s promise upon promise twisted into his very being, _ till the end of the line, _ and _ don’t do anything stupid _, and the terrible edge that lived in Steve’s eyes when his fingers had twisted into him on the battlefield, that he never wants to see again. No choice in him but to get out of this, with as much of his carefully collected self as he can. They’ll...they’ll all just have to understand that he doesn’t make the rules. Steve makes the rules. And Steve never takes no for an answer.

Stark isn’t looking at him. 

His eye is blackened, and there are finger shaped bruises darkening his arms, an ugly looking gash decorating his neck, bleeding sluggishly. 

“Explosive.” The other mutters as though he can see where Bucky is looking without needing to turn his head, as though his eyes darting from one corner of the cell to the other are better uses of his gaze that turning to him to speak. They probably are. “And you know, normally, I’d just.” He gestures wildly with his hand. “But sounds like it’s sitting right there on the artery, just waiting for a clumsy handjob.” He half tilts his head towards Bucky for a moment. “I can’t _ see _ and someone just can’t bear to be a weapon anymore, and one hand is definitely not enough to get me off so... Not to mention the whole, remote controlled, we touch it, I go boom thing. Which I love.” 

“What about -” 

But Stark cuts him off, a little more viciously this time. “Oh, right. Because definitely, I’m just sitting here in my t-shirt for kicks, thinking to myself, hey a bunch of Hydra goons snagged me and my best bud, you know what would be great right about now, not being Iron Man. Plus the whole boom thing, I know looks are more your thing, but boom is pretty-” He huffs out an exasperated breath. “Forget it. We all shared a good moment, you were there too, out cold, so you missed all the fun, but you can have the gory details if you want, where I’m sure a very qualified surgeon who would never forget to sterilize all the equipment had a great time taking out the reactor.” There’s just a hint of something brushing on pale that emerges for a minute at the gathering of words, but it fades again in a flash. “So it’s a no go on that. Plus, you know.”

“Boom.” He supplies, deadpan and Tony huffs, eyebrows rising meaningfully with a tightening of his lips as he nods, sardonic smirk well in place.

“And here I was saying old dogs can’t learn.” His fingers are drumming now, back and forth on the ground, twitching as though barely able to contain themselves from some unknowable action, restless, trapped. 

“That’s a terrible thing to say about dogs.” He gives back instead and Tony rolls his eyes. 

“When we get out of here, I’ll have Pep send an apology note. Dear old dogs and fossils, you can learn, but we just don’t have another 100 years to wait around for it.” The fingers get withdrawn and suddenly Tony’s eyes are on him, sharp. He looks away as though caught. “Good thing you have me.”

“_When?” _He echoes instead, which comes only with a shrug and silence. 

It stretches on without interruption, and the quiet seems to go for an age, in Bucky’s opinion, because nothing shuts Tony up, and he’s not sure if he should be worried, if his worry would even be welcome, if they’re on a good day or a bad one, if getting captured buys any camaraderie points or if Tony secretly wishes Hydra would just finish him and be done with it. Their relationship sits somewhere tenuous, Steve between them, something undefinable between them, some compulsion that won’t let either of them leave well enough alone, some curiosity, but anger, from Tony’s end, and mistrust on Bucky’s. The towering figure of crimson and fury mixing into his dreams with the rest of them. 

Soon enough though, before he can make up motion in his mind, Tony’s voice sing songs into existence. “I’m cold.” His eyes drift meaningfully up. “You’re like a candy consuming, calorie burning, monster furnace, aren't you? Going to leave me over here, cold?”

Sometimes, Tony makes him feel as dumb as he tells him he is, and he knows sometimes it’s on purpose, but right now he can’t suss out what making him suffer would accomplish, so he shrugs, with just a touch of hesitance, and offers over, “No,” shifting as elegantly as he can manage, closer to the other, who without any kind of seeming discomfort, although his teeth catch in a grimace for the briefest of seconds, fluidly tangles their bodies together, his head dropping onto Bucky’s shoulder, his arm around his waist, the whole of Tony’s body pressed up against his side. It tenses his spine, body uncomfortable with the touch, reacting in flinches and tightening, in clumsy uncertainty which presses against a raw wound he can’t address right now, because Tony’s voice his in his ear.

“Tracker in me.” Tony breathes under the pretense of a nuzzle, words more breath than sound, melting into Bucky’s skin, even as he arches his neck away from the air dancing along it. Stillness, and then another brush, shifting him in his spot. He wonders what Steve would say, to see them like this, twined up in one another. But that’s not the point. Tony sounds a little more acerbically amused this time when he speaks. “In you.” But also a touch of defensiveness creeps in, sullen. “Can’t have the little lamb always wandering away from pasture, now can we?” And back to normal again. There are a thousand layers in Tony’s voice, a thousand confusions, and they spin so fast from one to the next, he can never catch up. “They crushed the beads. But you know, I always tell _ her _ flash isn’t everything. The cavalry will figure it out eventually, I’m sure Prince Charming has already realized you’re out of place. And they’ll come. Just gotta- whatever.”

He wants to say _ In me? _ He wants to say _ Shuri, not she. _ He wants to say. _ Fuck you. _

But there’s no space for it between them, no time, because Tony has already shoved himself away, with a crinkling of his nose. “No need to be so grabby.” The smirk is back firm and embedded. “At least buy a guy dinner first.” 

As his skin cools back to empty again, he tries to pretend like he can’t tell absence from presence. 


	2. Steve Rogers School of Self Sacrifice for Losers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before it gets better...

_ Tony _

It’s not that he’s _ claustrophobic, _ okay, not thinking about falling deeper and deeper, water surrounding him, the suit pulling him down, not thinking about being stuck. In. Fucking. Space. And he also isn’t _ traumatized _, not thinking about untrained hands pawing at his chest, not thinking about the sleek, predatory, pleasure in a gaze that had, one time, meant safety but was stealing the literal heart from him. 

He’s saved the world, for crying out loud. He’s been forged in fire and hardened. They may as well start calling him Steel Man now, in fact, he thinks he’ll mandate that, although Our Lord and Savior is just fine, thank you.

It’s not any of that.

He’s just bored.

And stuck.

Stuck with his favorite person on earth, no less.

And if there’s anything Tony Stark hates, it’s to be bored, and stuck, and in unpleasant company. It never works out well really, for anyone, least of all for him.

He could pass the time tweaking the other, which is tempting, and always has the effect of those dumb blue eyes widening for a split second of shock, as though it’s just too much for his Grade A, angel innocence to understand why someone might want to be mean to him, before he decides to play ball, or at least tries to, and is, as a result, never completely dull, even if not exactly sharpening Tony’s wits. There’s no metal arm to threaten his precious cheekbones right now and no Steve to temper either one of them. But there’s something in the way the other has arranged himself, in the skirting of his eyes around the doorless room tracking sounds that don’t exist, which takes the fun right out of it. 

He has no idea if the other is claustrophobic, but he’s sure as hell traumatized, and even if Tony doesn’t _ care _ about that, because Barnes has a whole kingdom full of people, not to mention _ Steve _to care about that, he’s not a monster. 

And even if he doesn’t want to think about it, it’s possible he’s bored, and stuck, and in unpleasant company, but also somewhere, a sensation of sand falling from an hourglass twists his stomach uneasily. So far, it’s been bruises, okay, a _ mildly _traumatic, but also just mild, invasion of personal space to get out the arc reactor, but Afghanistan dwarfs that one, ten to one, and a mildly unpleasant wait in an, I-guess-they-learned-something-about-Tony-Stark, completely empty room with a bomb in his neck, but it’s been agitation, nothing that can’t be brushed off, drowned in a nap and a burger. It’s luck that won’t hold though. It never does. And the longer it takes Hansel and Gretel to get their act together, well. He just likes this t-shirt, and he doesn’t want to get blood...of any kind...onto it. That’s all. 

What a day to wear white. 

The sand falls and falls though, and eventually, the other shoe drops. Mixing metaphors, but close enough.

A terrible sound scrapes through the room, no finesse, travesty, and it has Barnes lurching up straight, and Tony wants to tell him to hurry up and put that fear away, it’s not going to be helpful, it certainly looks too tempting for a bunch of second rate baddies out for blood, or revenge, or whatever it is they occupy their days with, not that Tony would know anything about that, second rate evil _ or _whether the way Barnes is biting his lip might bring out the worst tendencies in the worst kind of people, definitely not from personal experience, he’s never had Bucky’s eyes, but he settles for just hissing.

“Did they not believe in _‘N_ _ _e_ver let em see you sweat’ _in the good old days? Get your game face on.” 

Those eyes snap to him, momentarily wide, but he at least incites a glare, which is better.

“Just look at them the way you look at me 85% of the time. They’ll go running for cover.” He keeps the drawl going, and the scowl coming his way deepens. 

“I -” Bucky starts, but it gets lost, just in time for them to turn their appropriately game-faced gazes towards footsteps echoing in the doorway.

The person who steps through doesn’t surface immediately in his mind, probably in some part due to an array of spectacular burns that splotches the side of his face. He can see Bucky from the corner of his eye, and there’s definitely reaction there, but the other is holding onto his Tony-Shut-Up-Expression and that’s something. 

“Oh, great. Room service.” He interjects out of habit, because silences and uncertainties make him uneasy, and the fire brigade is somewhere, they’re coming, and the mission is, minimal damage, maximum time wasted. And there’s no one who can waste time like him. “We called like an hour ago, so this is definitely going on Yelp.” He crosses his arms. “Don’t think you’ll be getting more visitors after I’m done with you, but sometimes, kidnapping people is rough like that.” His eyes flick down. “You’ve forgotten your name tag again, but I feel like I should personally thank you in my review, so….”

He lets the sentence drop with a wave of his hand and the guy smiles at him, the burns on his face stretching and twisting, not pretty, but after the ugly eggplant, charred tomato doesn’t exactly intimidate him. He’s just a human, just a pathetic little grunt. And Tony is going to get his suit back, and he’s going to finish whatever good job someone else started, and leave this place in the dust. 

“Rumlow.” The man drawls. “Brock Rumlow.” 

Bucky’s breath stutters a little, but Rumlow is either oblivious or he’s biding his time, Tony doesn’t let his eyes flick over. 

“Hrmmm.” He mulls the name over. “Turncoat SHIELD agent, failed to even take down Falcon, which you gotta admit is pretty pathetic, crushed by building, turned to petty crime, shish kabobed by Scarlet Witch, but I see, like most cockroaches, still crawling around. Have I got it?”

Rumlow laughs, an ugly scrape of a sound, strung out and raked over stone. “They do say you’re the brains of the outfit, Mr. Stark. So nice to finally meet you. I really gotta say, I owe you one. Dying slowly in that hospital and suddenly.” He snaps his fingers and Tony thinks he pretty valiantly keeps his face placid. “Gone. There and then back again, better than ever.” Rumlow’s tongue lolls out between his teeth a little. “They say you wanted to make sure everyone got put together again, right as rain. Coulda done a little more I think, but I’m grateful.” His smile bears down predatorily, and Tony lets his own mouth form into a shark’s grin.

“So you’ve brought me all the way here to say thank you? A card would have been just fine. Probably would have gotten tossed out and all that, I get so many, you know?” He lets his eyes linger on the other as he tilts his head. “I guess you probably don’t, but I do. It’s the thought that counts, though right? Hate to disappoint but the whole ultimate power thing is gone now, just got my brains and my looks, which are more than enough, but even they won’t fix your face.” 

Rumlow laughs again, falsely congenial, and Tony suspects strongly that even when he was whole, the ugliness seeped out all the edges. It sparks unpleasant kind of memory, somewhere in his awareness, nights spent in a haze of alcohol and the dulling of drugs, with men who hated only him more than they hated themselves. 

He allows the distaste to lurk in his eyes, as the sound of chortling echoes in the small room. 

In the doorway, the outlines of others slowly fill the space, but he ignores the assembling of other men. Unimportant until it’s important, tilts his chin up as Rumlow speaks. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. You’re just.” The man pulls his shoulder up. “Convenient collateral. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Tony scoffs. “Rude.” 

Which earns another laugh, and a wink that oozes grime. “True. Really gives you perspective, so many new leases on life. I thought, hey, Hydra doesn’t pay very well, not that much respect, letting a roof fall on a man, I’ll just start again, do a little crime, a man’s gotta live.” He steps closer, bends to squat in front of Tony. “You know a little something about that, right? But you _ Avengers _ .” The mask drops off completely for a split second, and there’s only bile beneath, deep, boring rage, and an ugly hunger, for blood, probably, for power, for something else. “Never can leave well enough alone. Thought I was really done for, that time. Hard to be suspended in a state of explosion for more than a minute, you know? When you’re supposed to be dead and your organs are burning, and somehow. Not dead yet.” The grin comes back again. “I guess you probably don’t, but I do. And then when you’re lying in that hospital bed, there’s not an awful lot to do but to think about what you might do if by some _ miracle _you could get up again. Not much at all. But thank god for our Lord and Savior.” He bows in mock deference and before Tony can really reply, his eyes have snapped over. 

Minimal damage, maximum time wasted. 

Minimal damage, maximum time wasted. 

Easy. 

Easy.

“Couldn’t have imagined it would be this easy though.” Rumlow is on his knees now, a hand out, which Tony watches in the kind of breath catching, rapt fascination, that comes with something about to go truly wrong. The hand tangles itself in the side of Bucky’s hair, pushing it back and into his skull as Rumlow digs fingers in to cradle his head, Bucky craning his neck reflexively away, turning his head to the side as Rumlow invades his space. 

“Hey sweetheart.” There’s a lilting purr to the rasp now, amusement which does nothing to disguise the less than silky danger below. “Did you miss me? Looked for you there for a little bit, before your boyfriend put me out of commission. Would have meant god, gold, and glory to get to turn you back into the suits, but you were always a tricky little bastard weren’t you?” The fingers yank rough. 

Bucky’s eyes are fixed on a point in the far corner of the room and don’t blink, but his chest betrays him, measured breaths that are too slow and stuttering to be anything but forced. A slow heave with a slight catch that grits Tony’s teeth. 

“Hey.” He interjects and reluctantly, Rumlow turns to look at him, Bucky doesn’t move, just one halting breath after the next. “Think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I’m the good time girl, Bucky’s more the wined and dined type, and seeing as you forgot everything I ordered…” 

Rumlow sneers, but he drops Bucky who falls back against the wall, and Tony only has a second to let his eyes rest on him, pale, okay, shaking, okay, eyes still focused, okay, before Rumlow’s hot breath is in his space again. “The wrong tree?” He asks with a hum that Tony forces himself to smirk back at. “You been wining and dining him, Stark?” The laugh creeps in again, but there are edges of stray madness which Tony files away as concerning, “Slut like that? Thought you were a genius.” 

Tony doesn’t let his eyes leave Rumlow, but Bucky’s flinch jars into his awareness all the same. 

“Well, we can’t all just go around forcing people to be with us, Rumlow.” He pulls himself up to sit a little straighter, but keeps just enough slouch to make sure the other knows he doesn’t think even for a second that he’s a threat. “Some of us actually make for enjoyable company.” 

The backhand doesn’t really catch him by surprise, as it sweeps his face sideways, surprising only that it hadn’t come earlier, because people like Rumlow are always dying to hit something, and even though he’s probably less resilient than Bucky, he’s putting two and two together quick, hello genius, and come up with _ Tony in the line of fire _ is the best way to achieve his aforementioned mission. Which he’s going to be resentful about later, but envisioning the look of disappointment Steve would give him if he brought his precious cargo back reduced to one big panic attack, which has nothing at all to do with the way Bucky’s face has gone a mix of fearful, complacent, and childishly terrified, well, whatever, he’s scared of Steve, and that’s enough.

His tongue flicks out to taste blood as he makes a show of breathing in place, before turning his smarting cheek back up with a grin. It throbs but he pushes a big grin out.

“Feel better?” The words fall out in mocking sing song. He needs enough anger to keep Rumlow focused, not enough to end up bleeding out or _ boom, _which is such a great tightrope act to go with his evergreen dream of joining the circus, and honestly, he misses the simplicity of evil that Thanos had been right around now. Rumlow seems like he has just enough of a selfish kind of bloodlust to be well trained in meting it out where it would be wanted the least.

He keeps himself loose as Rumlow’s mouth finds his ear. “Being a martyr again?” The words hum into him, and he doesn’t shudder, but it’s a near thing, an uncomfortable echo of being in Bucky’s space minutes? Hours? Some time ago. The breath crawls down his skin, seeps into him, disgusting and dark. 

“Just don’t like you very much.” He responds lowly. “Bet you get that a lot.” 

The smile shifts lips against him. 

“Bucky used to like me just fine.” Rumlow’s voice is conspiratorial, delighted, full of smug secret that he’s more than happy to share. “Loved me, you could even say. We had _ so _much fun together.” 

“Does it ever get old being a cartoon villain?” Tony tries to have it come out bored, but there’s strain there just slight, and he curses himself for it, game face, time waste. 

Rumlow chuckles again. 

“Oh. Are _ you _having my fun now. Rogers never struck me as much of the sharing type, or we’d have invited him along to the party.” 

He stays silent at that one and Rumlow pulls back, a hand out to stroke slowly through his hair. Tony just watches him. But as the other shifts around him, he can see Bucky watching now too, body turned towards them, a little bit of shock, a lot of terror, and fear maybe, Tony can’t tell, a different kind of fear than the when Rumlow had pulled Bucky’s head back. 

_ I know what I’m doing _. 

He tries to telegraph without having to look too much at Bucky, but Bucky’s eyes are on Rumlow, and Tony knows he’s gone to the Steve Rogers School of Self Sacrifice for Losers. 

“Rogers isn’t really much for parties.” He huffs out finally, as a thumb traces along the palm print decorating his face. “Stick in the mud.”

“But not you?” That terrible abomination of an almost purr is back again. “You’re a good time girl.” 

Tony’s eyes flash up to him and the grinning smugness is too much, it’s all he can do not to throw a punch, not to grit his teeth, just to raise a shoulder in a half shrug. “Yes.” 

“Don’t.” Bucky’s voice is small from the side and Tony has to close his eyes and take a breath, because things were going to be _fine, _damn that Steve Rogers school and its lessons. He’s glad to have never attended.

Rumlow’s eyes are practically gleeful as they run a finger over Tony’s lips, pressing down, his other hand turning Tony’s cheek to look at Bucky, who looks smaller than Tony has ever seen him, but determined. “Look, it cares for you.”

A flush flutters pink against the other’s cheeks as Tony watch, but he repeats. “Don’t. He’s just. You said it. Collateral.” 

Rumlow tuts, considering. “Rude, don’t you think?” He offers Tony, hand dragging back into his hair, tugging taut. “_ Pretty _collateral, I would say. Wouldn’t you?” Leveled back at Bucky now, and then a squint and a grin. “Learn how to speak without orders all on your own, hrm? Would have loved to see that struggle.” The measured breaths return, stuttering exhale, long inhale, but Bucky doesn’t look away. “Or did your little Captain Perfect play handler until you learned how. Bet he didn’t know what he could have made you do with that.”

Bucky’s eyes flit to Tony’s for a minute and then down and then back up again, his lips thin, the pink has reddened and Tony pretends like he didn’t hear any of it. Doesn’t want to have heard any of it, doesn’t want to have to think about it. 

“Uhm, exquisite is the word I’d use.” He interjects again, and Rumlow doesn’t drop his gaze from where its pinning Bucky, but his attention wavers a little. “You know, for how pretty I am. You asked. I mean, I am pretty but, I don’t really think that does me justice.” 

Finally, Rumlow looks back down at him, half growl coloring his tone now, which is optimal. Is violence better over whatever else is brewing in the room? Tony isn’t sure, can’t quite tell, but he’d felt some kind of danger zone come close. It abates a little.

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk way too much?”

He laughs though it sends an ache spiraling into his jaw and down into his aching chest. Too much ache. But tolerable. Tolerable. “No.” Pretend shock drips sarcasm. “Really, do you think people have said that behind my back?”

The second backhand has him cursing. Rumlow might be a second rate hack, but he’s got the brick hand down to a science. The crack is audible this time, and somehow, Bucky has gotten close enough to brush an arm against his. 

The third he isn’t, truthfully, expecting in succession, and it hits in the same spot as the first, setting a circuit of pain sparking behind his eyes, the smallest of grunts escapes his lips despite the way he tries to clamp down on it. It takes a minute to shove the pain away, to get his mouth to work the way it should. Bucky’s skin is warm where they touch. Blue eyes are boring into him, unreadable. 

“Careful.” There’s a layer of falseness wiped away from his gaze now, but he can’t find it in him to replace it, whatever cards in his hand he’s showing. “You’ll ruin the goods. Don’t think you can cough up the _ you break it, you buy it _ fee.”

Rumlow smirks, his hand going to the bruises again, thumb pressing down, skilled enough in torture beneath the smarm, it turns out, to know exactly where to push to make the vibrations shiver through the bones of his face, gradually building pain which twists without warning into unberable. Tony’s eyes flutter momentarily shut. “Just a little bit of normal wear and tear.” 

He leans back against Bucky, just a little, and breathes. 

“You taught me that one.” Rumlow is grinning again as he glances over at Bucky too, digging enough that a gasp flits through Tony’s lips. “Just the right amount of pressure, and - “ He sighs as though in memory. “Of course, with that arm, her jaw came clean off. Didn’t even flinch. I mean, it didn’t. She kind of.” The words are punctuated with digs of pain that rattle through Tony. “Flinched a little.”

He eyes Bucky again. “See you’ve lost it though, always were bad at taking care of our things.” There’s a leer there, lurking, a drop in tone and a rise in intent, he lets go of Tony to trace his gaze over Bucky, and it takes a good minute for the agony to clear, but it doesn’t obscure Rumlow’s pleased, low-- “Assets who can’t take care of our things get punished. Do you remember that lesson, now that you’re all soft and sad and mouthy? It’s always been my favorite.”

Rumlow’s hands are tangled in Bucky’s hair again an instant later, yanking back. The madness is present again, a brush of anger twined up in the laugher. “I asked you a question.” 

Instead of Rumlow, for the barest of seconds the other’s gaze is on Tony, and Bucky isn’t begging for help, he’s just resigned and this side of anguished, a hair breadth away from panicked, and yet somehow calm. He doesn’t respond and Rumlow tugs harder, pushing neck and skull back to a sharp angle, and Tony thinks about maybe just rushing him, throwing one good punch...but there are others in the doorway, and who knows how many more beyond that, the explosive in his neck, maybe a bluff, maybe not, too close for comfort one way or another, and, and, and.

And they must have been here for a minute already, they have trackers, and wherever they are, it can’t be that high tech. If anything it’s complicated on his end, but goddamn Shuri is supposed to be better than him, better at this, and even if they’ve got things that are throwing their scent off, where the fuck are they?

Rumlow has pushed himself into Bucky’s space, murmuring something into this ear that Tony can’t make out, but there’s a flinch, and a shudder, and the measured breaths are getting away from the other, starting to skip erratic. 

_ “Missed you.” _

He thinks he hears, and there’s nausea climbing through him that has nothing to do with the pain. Rumlow’s lips brush down against the exposed parts of Bucky’s throat, and teeth clamp down hard over the rushing pulse, laughing, marking, even futilely, but enough to leave the impression he wants, his other hand moving down the sides of the other’s body. And Bucky has gone a little limp in his grasp, his eyes closed, his whole body turned ragdoll. Nightmares brought to life, two steps forward, ten steps back. Fury clenches along Tony’s throat. He refuses to think about how hard it’s been for Steve and Bucky to find one another again, refuses to care, because he doesn’t care, because Bucky has everything but that, and why should Tony have to care, and -- 

“He doesn’t remember.” He finds himself saying, tongue moving without any kind of permission, words slurring through swollen jaw. “He’s not what you remember, or what you want. He just lies there all day. Cries. He is soft and sad and dumb, and not a very good lay, to be honest.” 

“Maybe that is what I want.” Rumlow’s voice is muffled as he presses kisses under Bucky’s jaw, twisting the long strands between his fingers as he shifts closer. “Make a nice mess out of him, get a little pound of flesh back as it were. Seems like he wants to take orders as badly as ever to me.” 

“Mmmmm, don’t think so.” Tony’s arms have crossed now and his voice has gone a little harder. Bucky’s eyes are watering, maybe tears, maybe pain, maybe both. He turns his gaze from it. “He used to have to take orders, but was also like a badass killing machine for you to put your dick into, now he’s just a moody farmer, armless, fightless. Look, he’s already checked out. You can push him down and do whatever you want, that really get you off?”

Bucky is blinking again and trying to catch his attention, but Tony ignores him, ignores the anger that’s there suddenly aimed at his direction. Not, he imagines, at what Tony is saying. But this isn’t Tony’s worst nightmare, it’s not even top 10, just another bad dream, and he’ll get over it. A pound of flesh. “Don’t worry. I’m sleeping with Rogers too, he’ll be equally devastated.” When he finds out on the tenth of never. 

“Oh really.” Steve’s name brings Rumlow back like a dog to bone and he lets up on Bucky with a final kiss, tongue pressing deep into his mouth, teeth scraping lip on the way out so they draw back red, Bucky’s hitch of breath is wet… Rumlow nips at his neck again as though it’s hard to make this choice, his hand stroking down Bucky’s chest covetously, but he finally detaches with a groan. “A two man kind of guy, what a dog.”

“Three actually.” Tony doesn’t flinch as the hand moves from one mark to the next, settles back on his cheek. “But you’ll never have the full set.” Rumlow raises a brow at him as though saying go on, but Tony just raises his own right back, until the other shrugs. “Well, let’s get to two out of three and we’ll see what we can do. Guess I have already fucked the asset before and variety _ is _ the spice of life. Think _ you’re _a good lay then, huh?”

“Better than you.” The exasperation is honest, and it’s the right kind of distracting to be just annoyed, as Rumlow presses him back against the wall and pushes his tongue into his mouth.

“Thought he killed your parents.” Rumlow breathes into the air below his ear when they part, which is totally appropriate pillow talk. “Thought he stole Rogers. Don’t you want me to fuck his guts out instead of yours?”

This time Tony glares, drops the pretense of amusement, and narrows his eyes, bare of teeth not even disguised as a smile. “Just thought I’d take this billion in a lifetime chance to get in your pants, Rumlow.”

Rumlow’s amusement is sincere which is aggravating, and smug, which is aggravating, and his fair enough shrug, as though anything about this situation is fair, is the most aggravating thing of all.

“Can’t blame you for that.” And then the rest of the words are swallowed into the tongue in his throat, pressing intently where it hurts.


End file.
